Cells at Work: Ebola

Chapter 13: The Greatest Disappointment

Lady Em felt the warm tip of her teacup touching her lips before sipping down the dark reddish liquid down her throat. The Earl Grey tasted sweeter and more lemony than usual.

"Mmm..." she hummed with pleasure, taking a couple more sips from her teacup before putting it down on the table. "Such, taste... Such, aroma... Nothing beats a warm cup of tea after a battle, won't you agree lieutenant?"

Her tea partner responded with a pained wet groan.

Sitting across her from the round table was a badly beaten Killer T Cell missing an arm and a parasitic virus clinging firmly on his head. The once legendary blade master now looked like a monstrosity of his former self. Milky white fluid fully covered his eyes and crimson cytoplasm drooled down from his unhinged jaw as he kept making low growling noises.

"Exactly," she nodded as if understanding all the incoherent sound the former blade master was making. "Though, regrettably, we fought on the opposite sides instead of fighting a common foe."

She then made a quick glance to her sides to look at a vast swath of corpses strewn all over the devastated plaza she had chosen to enjoy her break. True, the middle of a battlefield was the last place one would even think of sipping tea, but it didn't bother her at all. In fact, the rustic smell of spilled cytosol permeating from the ground only added a macabre ambiance to her recess.

As if angered by her hubris of having a tea break while the world around her burn, multiple explosions boomed at the direction of the liver's entrance where the bulk of her newly risen undead horde battled the remaining loyalist stragglers who were forming a hasty defense inside the main organ. The survivors of the blade master's shattered battalion continue to put up a strong resistance hoping to slow down her advance until reinforcements would arrive.

Unfortunately for them, there would be none.

She'd personally made sure of it.

Her table trembled after each explosion, but she ignored all the danger posed by her near proximity from the battle and instead, continued to drink and enjoy her break.

"I must say, there is just something in tea that I find captivating," she continued, addressing her guest sitting across the table. "It's one of my favorite past times and I most definitely got the fondness for it from my beloved master."

The undead blade master growled as if to concur her musings.

She paused. The thought of her master made her lips arched into an even wider grin.

"Ah yes, speaking of my master..." she quipped while changing the subject. "I wonder... How is she all reacting to the news of my betrayal? Shocked? Flabbergasted? Disgusted?"

A chill ran down her back at the thought of her master expressing all these negative emotions in her immaculate face. Truth be told, she felt no remorse or even a tinge of regret from completely turning her back from the cell she called master.

Her hand then moved to pick up the necklace dangling on her neck, as she lowered her head to look at it.

With a pinch of the locket's lock, it then opened to reveal a picture of her younger self with long flowing brown hair standing beside a taller, older maid who also sported the same long hazel-brown hair.

For a second, she wondered if the sight of her younger self standing beside her master, both smiling as if sharing a private joke, would spark any hint of guilt, but it only made her feel even more amused and determine to meet with her master in battle and beat her.

"My Lady Macrophage..." she whispered with glee. "My perfect master..."

Lady Macrophage, the strong.